Theater review: Twelfth Night

by Gina Robertson of John Garcia's The Column

Cross-dressers, drunken revelers, and brawling street fighters converge on stage at TCU's Buschman Theatre as Shakespeare's comedy Twelfth Night reminds audiences how much fun practical jokes and mistaken identity can be.

It is the story of Viola and Sebastian, twin brother and sister separated during a shipwreck off the coast of Illyria, who each believe the other to be drowned. Viola decides, for some reason, to disguise herself as a boy and enters the service of Duke Orsino where she promptly falls in love with him. He is occupied in the wooing of Olivia, a neighboring countess who will have none of him, so he sends his new serving man to charm the lady to his suit. She is so charmed by Caesario (actually Viola in disguise) that she falls in love with him and sets her own womanly wiles toward seducing him. Hilarity ensues.

Much of the comedy is provided by the subplot involving a colorful cast of other characters, a large volume of alcoholic beverage, and a practical joke played on Olivia's pompous head steward Malvolio. The whole cast is in sync in this production, all very talented and generous actors who make each other funny as much as themselves by delivering priceless reactions and gestures. Susan Helvenston as Viola, for example, owns several of the funniest moments in the play by simply using her expressive face to react to the other characters.

Feste the clown fool, played admirably by David Coffee, sets the tone and provides the theme that ties the play together. He opens and closes the play with a soulful song and entertains the characters in various scenes. With an engaging combination of silliness and wisdom, Feste challenges the characters to reckon with themselves.

J. Brent Alford and Daniel Fredrick play off of each other well as Olivia's Uncle Toby and another of her suitors, Andrew Aguecheek. They are a memorable comic team, and their scenes are quite entertaining. David Fluitt perfectly embodies the ambitious snob Malvolio who struts and preens his way into an ego trap set for him by the other characters. His reading of the letter he believes was written by Olivia declaring her love for him is priceless, as is the concentrated grimace he affects as the perpetual smile that has won her heart.

Costumes are spectacular, and the lighting design enhances the stylishly simple set to perfection, creating a pleasing picture of the characters in each scene.

Stage action and dialogue are briskly paced, and the story moves along until the climax scene in which the mixed-up identities of Olivia and Sebastian are sorted out and the lovers are paired with their appropriate intended. Here the story drags a bit as all of the characters are standing around on stage watching as everything is revealed in the dialogue of the few central characters. Antonio has been arrested early in the scene, for instance, and there doesn't seem to be any reason for he and the arresting guards to stand there watching while the rest of the story unfolds so that he can be released at the end. Since the audience already knows who's who, the painstaking process of watching each character discover and react to it one after another becomes a bit tedious at a point when the play should rightly be wrapped up and put to bed.

You'll find this to be a fun, playful night of theater, and don't miss the 20-minute bonus feature written and directed by Claire Parker, Shakespeare on the Green, which is presented out on the courtyard behind the theater beginning one hour before show time.